


Visions

by whichstiel



Series: Season 15 Codas [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dreams, Episode Tag, Episode: s15e05 Proverbs 17:3, M/M, Supportive Sam Winchester, episode coda, proverbs 17:3, spn 15x05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-16 05:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21502534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichstiel/pseuds/whichstiel
Summary: “You remember that one summer you wanted to play cops and robbers?” Dean laughs. “Man, you were just determined to be the most normal kid. You were always the cop, chasing my ass. And now look at you.” Experimentally, he tugs on the ropes binding Sam to the cot in Bobby’s panic room.Light chops against the walls through the upper grate, and Sam fixates on it. He tries to focus.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: Season 15 Codas [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1514042
Kudos: 68





	Visions

“You remember that one summer you wanted to play cops and robbers?” Dean laughs. “Man, you were just determined to be the most normal kid. You were always the cop, chasing my ass. And now look at you.” Experimentally, he tugs on the ropes binding Sam to the cot in Bobby’s panic room. 

Light chops against the walls through the upper grate, and Sam fixates on it. He tries to focus. 

“You’re nose deep in demon blood. Again.” Dean crouches low, and clutches a fistful of Sam’s hair to drag his face down and to the side. Now, Sam can look Dean in the eye. Now, Sam can see his future writ large in his brother’s bloodshot gaze. “You know, Bobby thinks you just need another detox. Get it all out this time and you’ll...turn over another leaf.” He looks away and mumbles, “Or some shit like that.”

“Dean,” Sam manages to say past the shakes. His teeth are clenched, his jaw exhausted from the tense coil his body’s been in as the demon power fades. 

“See,” Dean pulls out a knife. “I know better. Dad warned me about this. He warned me, and I didn’t listen the first couple of times but I’m sure as hell listening now.”

“Don’t--” Sam should fight for his life. Arguments mushroom under his tongue, but his body and blood-addled mind won’t work in concert. Instead, the discord in his body ruins everything. “D-d-d--”

There’s an odd smile on Dean’s face now, twisting his expression into grim resignation. “I’ll make it quick,” he says gently. And he does.

* * *

When Sam rockets out of bed, sweating and gasping, it almost feels normal. 

He swigs some water, pulls on jeans and a pullover sweatshirt and stumbles out into the yellow-lit corridor. 

In the bunker, it’s hard to tell the time, so Sam carefully ignores the little clock on the microwave that they keep scrupulously correct and makes a pot of coffee at three a.m. While it brews, he attacks his shakiness with an attempt at toast but he gives up halfway to the toaster and tears into it. Bread is a real, solid thing, and a good distraction from the dream.  _ It’s not real, _ Sam thinks.  _ But it could be.  _ He shudders.

By the time Dean reaches the kitchen it’s a little before six in the morning. Dean’s eyes are lined with canyons of exhaustion, but he’s jovial when he claps Sam a little too hard on the shoulder in greeting. So. He’s been awake for a while too. Dean doses himself with coffee and rattles the box in front of Sam like a fortress. “Stealing my cereal? Come on, man.” Dean reaches for the box of CocoChoco Crunchers and jams his hand in for a fistful. “You remember that one summer you wanted to play cops and robbers?” Dean laughs around a mouthful of cereal, oblivious to the color draining from Sam’s face. “Man, you were just determined to be the most normal kid. You were always the cop, chasing my ass. And now look at you.” He lowers his voice dramatically. “Eating sugary cereal that you  _ stole _ .” 

Some level of banter is required, but Sam can’t manage it. He waves his hand at the cereal box, a clear sign for Dean to take it, then buries his forehead in his hands. His palms are too-warm from the coffee, but the temperature difference helps to give him something else to focus on aside from the churning anxiety in his gut or the unceasing pain in his shoulder. 

“Hey. You okay?” 

“Just didn’t get much sleep,” Sam mumbles. 

“Why don’t you go get a little more shut-eye? I’ll find us a case.” 

“A case.”

“Yeah, well. Somebody’s gotta live a frickin’ life.” The jovial veneer drops. “If it ain’t gonna be me or you, then we gotta save some other poor saps. Right? You still dreaming?” 

“What?” Sam starts guiltily as though Dean can watch his dream like a movie reel. 

“You still having those murder dreams?” Dean stares at Sam with a look that says,  _ I will see past any and all bullshit so don’t even try. _

Sam shrugs. “A few.” 

“You wanna talk about ‘em?” By the look on Dean’s face, he’d rather not dwell on Sam’s Chuck-delivered murder fantasies either. 

“You know what?” Sam stretches like he’s performing on stage. “I think I will get a little more sleep. I’m exhausted. You find us a case, and I’ll be ready.” He leaves Dean in the kitchen and pushes his way back to his room. There, he lies down on his bed, intent on shuffling through the memory of his dream to find a clue - a key that might save them. Instead, Sam falls asleep.

* * * 

This time, it’s more confusing. In these dreams, Sam is always watching what unfolds like it’s a movie so it takes him a moment to recognize the man standing with an angel blade pointed at Cas. 

“Sam!” Dean shouts from somewhere off to the side. 

Observer-Sam glances over to see Dean who must be almost a decade younger than they are now. Dean’s struggling to stand. Blood runs down his forehead, and he sways a little and presses his hand to the wall before shambling back to the showdown between Castiel and a much, much older Sam. 

Sam looks back at himself. He must be pushing seventy in this dream. His hair is a stream of silver, his face lined with the combination of wrinkles and scars that decorate every hunter who manages to live past fifty. 

“Purgatory is where it all started,” Old Sam insists with barely a glance towards Dean. 

“Purgatory? What the fuck are you talking about?” Dean asks while Castiel visibly flinches. 

“Dean, Cas is trying to open Purgatory. It’s where monster souls go when they die. And when that opens, everything goes wrong. When you go to Purgatory, everything goes bad.”

“When I go to--” Dean starts, but Sam speaks over him. 

“That’s why I traveled back in time.” He tightens his grip on the angel blade and the silver flashes menacingly. “To end it. To stop him.”

“What? Sam, if that’s really you--” Dean tries to push himself between Castiel and Sam, but Castiel thrusts him aside as easily as if he were a paper tissue. 

“This is the only way,” Castiel growls. “The only way to save Earth from the depredations of Heaven.” 

“You’re right,” Sam says quickly. Quietly. “This is the only way.” He whirls into action, launching himself at Castiel. 

Sam expects to watch himself be quickly disarmed. Maybe Dean kills him accidentally in this vision as he intervenes. Maybe Sam kills Dean accidentally, as he intervenes. Because the enmity between them doesn’t seem to be high enough to warrant the usual dream murder. But his older self is fierce and fast and before Sam can do more than inhale, the room fills with the bright blue light of a dying angel. 

Dean flies to Castiel, too late to catch him before the light disappears and all that’s left is wing ash across the floor and furniture. When Dean looks up, the conciliatory attitude is gone. When Dean looks up, there’s murder in his eyes. 

* * *

Maybe watching his older self die is easier to disassociate from, but Sam wakes up easier from this dream. He pushes himself up to sit, and he looks at his closed door and thinks.

There’s an element of emotion to each dream. Maybe that’s the worst part of it. Feeling the rage, the hate, the regret, the fear...it’s overwhelming. He can feel it in the version of himself that he’s watching - old or young, possessed or free. He can taste it in Dean in equal measure. When Lucifer laughed, he felt that dark mirth and his own deep despair. When Dean’s Mark of Cain flared, he felt the burn of Dean’s demonic hate alongside his own mortal fear.

The flavor of Dean’s agony when Castiel died in the dream stays with Sam. There was love there, mixed into the agony and the anger. Love for Sam, for Sam-and-Dean, but also a blazing, aching longing for Castiel. Feeling that was surprising but only for a moment. Then, it was like he’d always known. Sam remembers Dean from a few years ago and nods slowly. Yes. He should have known for a while. 

Sam stares at the door. His brother is in the kitchen eating his way through a box of sugared cereal, his heart a closed cage. And not for the first time, Sam wonders what happened with Cas. Because there’s no question about it. When Cas is gone, a part of Dean leaves too. 

Sam heads to his desk and opens his laptop. Dean’s researching a case, but Sam has his own work to do. He’s found an angel in a sea of humans before. He’ll do it again. There’s more than one way to stop an apocalypse, to stop a god, to stop his brother from self-destructing and taking everyone out with him.  _ You were always the cop,  _ Dean’s observation echoes in Sam’s memory and he smiles for the first time that morning. “And a damn good detective, too.” Sam hunkers down, and gets to work. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/whichstiel) and [Tumblr](http://whichstiel.tumblr.com/) @ whichstiel. You may also like the Supernatural recap and gif blog I co-write/curate, [Shirtless Sammy](https://shirtlesssammy.tumblr.com/).


End file.
